


as good a place to fall

by Myargalargan



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e09 Out of the Past (Legend of Korra), Established Relationship, F/M, Happy Ending, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Spoilers for Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Sukka Week, Sukka Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26309719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myargalargan/pseuds/Myargalargan
Summary: After Yakone's trial, Sokka is having trouble recomposing himself. Suki is there to help.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	as good a place to fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sukka Week 2020 on Tumblr! The prompt is "I got your back," for which this is a pretty loose interpretation.
> 
> Title from "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence + The Machine

Suki bit her lip in contemplation while she poked at the parcel on the table covered in bright floral wrapping cloth. There was a box of homemade cookies underneath that cloth, a gift from Kya and Tenzin (Bumi was much too _cool_ to bake cookies for his aunt and uncle, but the crude wood carving of what appeared to be a sabertooth moose lion tied to the string around the parcel gave away the fact that he hadn’t wanted to be left out). 

Normally Sokka was home before her, and on really good nights, dinner was already on the table, too. But when Suki got home that night, the house was dark and empty and the air woefully did not smell like searing meat, so she knew she was out of luck. Sokka had that trial tonight, and it must’ve been a doozy of a deliberation to hold him up this long. But now she was stuck weighing the merits of skipping straight to dessert against the inevitability of Sokka’s disappointment upon discovering she’d opened the cookies without him. Decisions, decisions…

When she heard the door open, she whirled around with her thumb caught between her teeth. 

“Sokka! Thank goodness! You have to save me from temptation-”

But as soon as she saw him, she froze. Sokka’s face was ashen, as if all the blood had been drained from his body, and his eyes were glazed over, looking at nothing. Panic ignited in her immediately. 

“Sokka, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” she asked, rushing over to him and taking his face in her hands. He didn’t _look_ injured, but… “Is everyone okay? Katara? The kids?”

“Yeah...yeah…” He was so out of it. Sokka absently placed one of his hands over Suki’s, but he still wasn’t looking at her. “The kids...Katara...all fine…” 

His knees bent like he was about to lower himself into a chair, but there was no furniture nearby.

“Whoa, hold on.” Suki grabbed his arm to heave him back upright and led him over to the bench at the perimeter of their living room. He didn’t even seem aware he was being maneuvered, and Suki fought back the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake some life into him. Once they were seated, she ran her hand across Sokka’s forehead and down his cheek. He was so cold.

“Sokka, I need you to tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”

He finally looked at her, then, but that was all he did. His pupils were tiny pinpricks, completely overwhelmed by the blue of his irises, and as much as she loved that color, the look in his eyes right now made her stomach clench. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him so...stricken. 

“Was it the trial?” she asked. What could possibly have transpired at this thing that would result in _this_ kind of reaction, she had no idea. But it was the only straw she had. 

She got a small nod in return, and then Sokka lifted his own hand to Suki’s face, trailing his fingertips over her cheekbone as if uncertain she was real.

“I’ve never...seen anything like it before.” His hand dropped heavily, and he looked off into the distance again. “Yakone...he bloodbent everyone. Me. And Toph. And Aang. The whole room. Everyone...everyone in the entire room at the same time.”

“What?” Her voice was nearly a whisper. Suki knew all about bloodbending, of course. Katara had been instrumental in outlawing it, and it had been a frequent topic of conversation while that campaign had been underway. She remembered how horrified she’d been after hearing about the desperate circumstances that forced Katara to learn the skill, imagining someone else having complete control over her body. The thought of being violated that deeply...her reaction had been so visceral it had made her nauseous. 

“Did he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to voice the question. Knowing Sokka had been bloodbent at all was bad enough, but what if Yakone had forced him to hurt someone? Or worse? “Is everyone...everyone at the trial, are they all...okay?”

Sokka turned to her again, and she must’ve looked dreadful, because she saw, for the first time that night, a sign of acknowledgement in his face. His eyes softened as he reached out to her again, pushing his fingertips into her hair. His touch was still so subtle, as if to prove to himself that he could truly feel with just the delicate nerves at the very ends of his fingers.

“Yeah. Yes,” he said, sounding a little more like himself and less like a disembodied spirit. “Physically, yes, thank goodness. We weren’t sure at first, because everyone passed out. Even Aang, just for a minute.” 

“Spirits, Sokka…” she cursed, torn by her need for reassurance. She wanted to pull back so she could examine him all over, to demand whether he’d seen a healer, to drag every last detail out of him so she knew exactly what had happened to him. But that would only agitate him further. Much as she was finding it difficult to be patient, they’d had enough fights over the years resulting in Sokka completely closing himself off that she knew better. 

“Once everyone was conscious again, we had to stay and give statements. There’s going to be...so much paperwork. But I couldn’t...not right then...I had to just...walk around for a while. Feel my body again. Feel like I was...in control again.”

Suki reached out to cup Sokka’s jaw, thumbing the shell of his ear. He leaned into the touch, his eyes closing, though there was still a tightness in his face that belied any real sense of calm. 

“I just...I can’t get it out of my head. The way it looked. The way it felt. It was different from the last time. Back with Hama, during the war? This time...it was like everything inside of me was being squeezed.” 

He shuddered and then pitched forward until his forehead was resting on Suki’s shoulder. She draped her arms around him, cupping the back of his head with one hand and scratching her fingernails gently across his scalp.

“It’s alright now. It’s over. You’re here, you’re you. And I’ve got you.”

Sokka moved against her, and she recognized the restless energy, the same aborted movements that sometimes accompanied nightmares, the subtle way his fingertips dug into her back when he looped his arms around her. While he pressed silently into her, images ran through her head — Sokka in pain, Sokka gasping for breath, Sokka collapsed and motionless on the ground — and her arms tightened around him. She felt his hands start to move along her back, aimless and slow, and she didn’t know if it was to comfort her or to assure himself that he was the master of his own pace. It gave her the impression that she was being mapped. Leave it to Sokka, she thought with a faint smile, to use the deliberate, methodical study of a subject as a way to come back to himself. 

Eventually, his shoulders slackened, and his body melted into hers, but there was still one troubling thought keeping her rigid against him.

“Sokka?” she murmured, easing into it. When he hummed, she continued, “What happened to Yakone?” 

She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to know. If everyone had gotten knocked out, chances were he’d gotten away, and the thought of someone like that at large, someone with the power to bloodbend dozens of people at once… A chill like ice ran down Suki’s spine.

Sokka lifted his head, and Suki was relieved to see his pupils were a completely normal size. He still had a bit of a frown between his eyebrows, but _that_ , at least, was a fairly common occurrence and didn’t make her insides seize up the way they had before.

“Aang, he...he took Yakone’s bending away.”

Like Ozai... There was an unsettling jump in her chest, thinking of how there had been someone else out there threatening enough to warrant such a drastic fate. 

“Shit,” was all she could say. It came out like a hiss.

“Yeah,” Sokka agreed. 

Suki took his face in her hands again. Not only were his eyes back to normal, but his skin had warmed. 

“You’re safe,” she said, and it was as much a question as it was a statement. When he nodded, just once, her chest finally, finally deflated. 

“Yeah.”

First, she lowered her forehead to his, and then her mouth found his mouth, and although Sokka’s hands clenched in the fabric of her tunic, he kissed her with the same gentleness as when he’d touched her cheek, his lips barely skimming hers, another confirmation that his body was his again, out to the very edges. 

It might’ve been what he needed, but it wasn’t nearly enough for her. She let out a discontented little groan from the back of her throat, feeling absolutely no shame, especially when Sokka responded by tilting his head and kissing her properly. As much as she needed this _from_ him, she needed to give this _to_ him. She needed his decisiveness, his earnestness, but she also needed an outlet for the ferocity that was burning through her. And since she couldn’t use it against the person who’d nearly squeezed the life out of her man, she would use it to urge the life back into him. 

When she pulled away, Sokka looked a little dazed and more than eager to continue, so when she followed up by shoving his shoulder, it took him a second to climb out of his stupor.

“Um, ow? What…?”

“You’re supposed to have a boring government job now! What the hell happened?”

He smiled a little, and relief flooded through her like a tidal wave. 

“Adventure just follows me wherever I go. It’s what happens when you have such a magnetic personality.”

“Oh, shut up,” she laughed. His eyes seemed to dance along with her laughter. “I don’t suppose you’re hungry?” Not that there was anything to eat. _She_ certainly wasn’t going to cook this late, and she couldn’t expect him to. Except… “I was about to break into the cookies the kids made us before you got home.”

Sokka sighed heavily, leaning back against the wall and pulling Suki with him. His hands found their way to her hair again, but they were more deliberate this time.

“Cookies for dinner. I’m in. And then, for after dinner…?” He leaned down and gave her a rather purposeful kiss that had her thrumming. She was almost surprised by the shift in his mood, except that after the emotional ride their evening had been, she found she could definitely use the catharsis. And if _she_ was feeling so inclined, then Sokka had to be feeling it that much more.

“Okay, Councilman Adventure,” Suki announced, getting to her feet and pulling him up with her. “Let’s fuel up.”

Instead of going straight for the cookies, though, Sokka wrapped his arms around Suki so tightly, her feet lifted off the floor. 

“I love you so much,” he said into her ear from where his face was pressed against her cheek. 

“I love you,” she said, folding herself around him as much as she could. 

It threw her again, all this jumping from ghostly to playful to desperately vulnerable, and the need to be as close to him as possible — physically, emotionally — reared up, greater than her hunger, or her apprehension about what had happened today. As soon as her feet were back on the ground, she clamped her hand around Sokka’s and dragged him towards the bedroom.

“What about-?”

“Bring them,” she commanded. 

Dutifully, Sokka swiped the box of cookies as they passed, and then he chuckled. 

“What?” Suki asked, pivoting to face him as they entered the bedroom.

“No, it’s stupid, I just… I was thinking how much I like it when it’s _you_ who’s, y’know...in control.”

She was caught halfway, suddenly, between amused and alarmed. On the one hand, he must be feeling better if he was making jokes about it, but on the other hand-

“You know I would never do anything against your _will_ , though-”

“I know! Of course! That’s why I said it was stupid. It’s totally different,” he said, putting down the box of cookies so he could step closer, wrap his hands around her waist. “This is totally different. That’s why I…” he lowered his forehead to hers. “That’s why I _need_ …”

“I know,” she said softly, running her hands along his shoulders, down the front of his tunic. “I know.” _Me too_ , she thought. “I’ve got you.”


End file.
